Hunting Grounds
by blood-rayne2
Summary: Love of life is to pay the price.


The rain was like tears upon her face, cold tears that stung her skin oh-so- slightly. She welcomed them. They made her own tears slightly easier to bear. Rinoa closed her eyes, pressing the heels of her palms against her trembling lids, hurting her eyeballs with the pressure but not caring. Her sockets could explode in great gouts of blood to wash over the cement of the flat roof that she stood upon, and she would not care.  
  
He had come in a business suit. Those kind weren't supposed to wear business suits, not from the stories that she had heard. They wore courtly dress and great capes lined in silk, and sometimes the more modern ones stalked the streets in Balamb and enormous black trenchcoats that flapped like ravens' wings in the night wind. The stories had never said anything about business suits.  
  
But he was beautiful, just like the stories said. Beautiful, with their pale skin and cold eyes and bewitchingly inhuman smile. His skin was the color of old and pale-polished bones, just like his teeth, and his eyes were the grey of the sky before an ice storm; his tie was fastened neatly beneath his chin, and his rich auburn hair pulled tight back from his face. He had said his name was Nikolas..... .....and he had stolen Squall away. Squall....A quiet sob choked in Rinoa's throat, and she gouged her fingers into her hair. Squall had been beautiful too, more beautiful to Rinoa than even his immortal seducer, beautiful enough to be the love of her life. Squall didn't even like men, and had been Rinoa's first and only love....and she had found them together, Nikolas's mouth at Squall's throat, lips red with his blood, her beloved's exquisite features slack with wanton, obscene ecstasy, his lovely icy gray glazed with passion, the hands that Rinoa had kissed, stroked, felt upon her own body now clutching at Nikolas, caressing him hungrily.  
  
She had screamed at them. "What are you doing?!" she had cried, and then flown at Squall, scratching at him bitterly. "Why him....WHY HIM!!!!" The Squall that she had known would have held her, would have kissed her tears, would have pressed his forehead to hers and whispered soothing words as his caramel locks mingled with her night-black ones. But this creature....this creature that wore her darling's face was not Squall, and only seized her wrists in a grip of cold iron, holding her distant as he regarded her in hard, glazed contempt, the light of desire in his eyes fading to leave behind nothing but unfeeling emptiness. This creature had felt the dark stranger's kiss, and belonged to her no more; he was one of them now, one of the beautiful dead, and she was nothing more than part of the herd. She wished that he had killed her then.  
  
Better that than having to see them every night, having to watch them enter the club where she tended bar and that they had staked out as their hunting grounds--the self-same club where Nikolas had singled Squall out as his prey the night that he had come early to pick Rinoa up from work. They hunted together now, moving as creatures with one mind with their slick, easy smiles and hungry animal eyes, entrancing each fresh sacrifice, the mesmerizing force of their combined gazes enthralling them like small animals in a snake's stare. Rinoa could only watch helplessly as the night- born lovers led out unsuspecting person after person to devote to their eternal hunger--and sometimes both steely grey and icy blue eyes would seek her out across the club, and those twin smiles would wound her with their silent knowledge, Squall's piercing her more painfully than any wound, secure in the knowledge that she would not do anything to stop them, not as long as she still loved him.  
  
She couldn't take it any more. She couldn't stand it a moment longer, knowing that each night in the bed where she had once slept entwined with her beloved, yet another hapless child of the city died....and that each day in that same bed, behind drawn curtains and hidden from the light, the ice-eyed stranger occupied her space in Squall's arms, nestled close with his teeth resting snugly against that now-cold throat. She couldn't bear knowing that she had lost him without even a fight; why fight, why struggle, when no mortal woman could possibly compete with the lure of endless night? The wet cement was cold upon her bare feet as she stepped slowly across the rooftop; there were other presences there with her, she could feel them, but she knew that they would not interfere.  
  
The rain made her shoulder length ebony hair cling close to her skull, straggle into her bloodshot brown eyes, made the flimsy fabric of her short summer dress stick like a second skin to the angular planes of the slender, girlish body that Squall had once loved so much. The city stretched out before her, cold and unfeeling and oblivious, yawned beneath her as she peered over the edge, and then stepped back, suddenly dizzy. No. No second thoughts.  
  
"It won't make the pain go away, you know." His voice was at her shoulder, but it wasn't her Squall, not her Squall at all. It was his Squall, and the cold strangeness of his once-familiar voice mocked her.  
  
"I know, " she whispered without turning around.....and then spread her arms wide, and flew. They stayed until a crowd began to gather around the broken corpse below. Then, hand in hand, the lovers departed. It was time to find new hunting grounds. 


End file.
